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MS Office Forum / Word / Long Documents / September 2006Having Clear Formatting reset text to Body Text
Is there an relatively easy method (for novice users) for having Body Text the default style for a document? Specifically, I'm looking for: 1. Clear Formatting to reset the text's style to Body Text; and 2. the style following other paragraph styles (Headings, etc.) to default to Body Text instead of Normal. - Dennis > Is there an relatively easy method (for novice users) for having Body > Text the default style for a document? Specifically, I'm looking for: > 1. Clear Formatting to reset the text's style to Body Text; and > 2. the style following other paragraph styles (Headings, etc.) to > default to Body Text instead of Normal. Responding to myself... My original question is based on some assumptions that I have about using Word's styles. A better question is: what's a good method for using Body Text so that every paragraph does not need to be styled as Body Text. Currently I set a paragraph as Body Text, but when I apply Headings or Clear Formatting, the text goes back to Normal. I don't believe that other Word users in my office will be willing to or even remember to keep choosing Body Text for paragraphs. Thanks. - Dennis If you display the 'Modify Style' dialog for any style, you'll see there's a field for 'Style for following paragraph'. >> Is there an relatively easy method (for novice users) for having Body >> Text the default style for a document? Specifically, I'm looking for: [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > - Dennis Is there a method for changing the 'Style for following paragraph' for many styles at once? Also, do you have any idea how to change 'Clear Formatting' to use a different style? > If you display the 'Modify Style' dialog for any style, you'll see there's a > field for 'Style for following paragraph'. [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > > > - Dennis > Is there a method for changing the 'Style for following paragraph' for > many styles at once? Not that I know of. > Also, do you have any idea how to change 'Clear Formatting' to use a > different style? No. Click 'Clear Formatting' then click the style you want to apply. You surely don't need to do this often enough for it to be an issue. Hi Dennis > Is there a method for changing the 'Style for following paragraph' for > many styles at once? It probably can be done with VBA. But you'd have to specify exactly which styles you want set to be followed by "Bodytext" (because, for many styles, you want them to be followed by themselves. To get a good idea on how to setup styles, here's some food for thought: Creating a Template – The Basics (Part I, by Suzanne Barnhil) http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm Creating a Template (Part II, by John McGhie) http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm > Also, do you have any idea how to change 'Clear Formatting' to use a > different style? Hmm, why not just apply Bodytext directly? If you are talking about CTRL-SHIFT-N to apply Normal, you can define and use a shortcut of your own for Bodytext (can be set in the style dialog). HTH Robert  Signature/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS \ / | MVP X Against HTML | for / \ in e-mail & news | Word The way I do it is two-fold: 1. Format the default empty paragraph in a template as Body Text instead of Normal. 2. Set the "Style for following paragraph" of the built-in heading styles to be Body Text instead of Normal. Note that "Clear Formatting" is a somewhat deceptive phrase. What this style/command really does is apply Normal style. You'd be better off assigning a keyboard shortcut to Body Text (you could even assign it Ctrl+Shift+N, which by default applies Normal). When you really want to "clear formatting" (that is, reset text to the default paragraph or font formatting), you can use Ctrl+Q (ResetPara) and Ctrl+Spacebar (ResetChar). SignatureSuzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. > > Is there an relatively easy method (for novice users) for having Body > > Text the default style for a document? Specifically, I'm looking for: [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > - Dennis 1) No. Once you understand how Word does formatting, you will realise that what you ask for is impossible. "Clear Formatting" does exactly what it says it does: it removes ALL formatting from a paragraph. However, a paragraph in Word is a very complex object, there are some properties it MUST have in order to be a valid paragraph, and one of them is a "Style". All formatting in Word is actually a "Style". All of the formatting of all parts of a Word document are held at the end of the document, as rows in a table or "spreadsheet" if you like. Each paragraph contains a binary number that indicates which row in the formatting table contains its formatting properties. Many paragraphs can point to the same row, or just part of a single paragraph may have a row all of its own. Normal style is the first row of that table. Row 0. So when you remove all formatting from a paragraph, you get "Style 0". The human name for "Style 0" is "Normal Style". Hope this helps On 10/9/06 10:05 AM, in article 1157846710.108889.314710@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com, "dsutch@gmail.com" > Is there an relatively easy method (for novice users) for having Body > Text the default style for a document? Specifically, I'm looking for: [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > - Dennis SignaturePlease reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email me unless I ask you to. John McGhie <john@mcghie.name> Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410 In other words, novice users (found in many organizations) are likely to end up with Normal style throughout their documents. And updating the Normal style is not a good practice, since many other styles are based on this style. So we're stuck training our users to remember to check for any occurances of Normal in their documents and to restyle them as whatever style they choose for their body text. Can't there be a better option? Maybe some "best practice" for a template and set of styles that eases the burden? - Dennis > 1) No. Once you understand how Word does formatting, you will realise that > what you ask for is impossible. [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] > Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer > Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410 Any organization worth its salt will have a set of templates designed for specific purposes, with appropriate styles (and easy ways to apply those styles) to make it easy for users to create documents in the "house style." They should not be using Normal.dot as a basis for any documents except personal, throwaway stuff. For an idea of how to start with just one such template, see http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/Letterhead.htm. SignatureSuzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. > In other words, novice users (found in many organizations) are likely > to end up with Normal style throughout their documents. And updating [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > > Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer > > Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410 > So we're stuck training our users to remember to check > for any occurances of Normal in their documents and to > restyle them as whatever style they choose for their > body text. If you define "Normal" as "Courier New, red" or something equally obnoxious, they don't have to check: they see. The restyling issue isn't solved that way, though, which brings us to... > Can't there be a better option? Maybe some "best practice" > for a template and set of styles that eases the burden? There are many other opinions... My "best practice" suggestion is to stick with "Normal" as the default (body text) style. Styles are supposed to make things easy for you. When you stick with the same default text style (and heading styles ...), things are pretty simple. You don't have to remember what style is the default for the given document, or worry about style issues when pasting text between documents. When you use your own template styles, or company styles, you often end up spending a lot of your time on reformatting. There is an option in Word that allegedly brings you the best of both ways: "Alias style names". You could rename the built-in style (Normal). In Word 2007, there is even an option to hide the built-in name from the user and only show your alias name. It might do what you want to do. IMO though, styles like "Normal; SmithBrown_BT; bt" hurt the eye, and if you hide the "real" name(s), users will likely be confused in many situations ("What is style »xy« for, in this document"?, "Why do »Heading 1« paras change into some other style when I paste into this document?" ...). Regards, Klaus > There are many other opinions... My "best practice" suggestion is to stick > with "Normal" as the default (body text) style. Won't there be an issue when I need to make changes to the Normal style? For instance, when I add spacing below paragraphs, it also affects my headings. Thanks for the helpful response. Dennis That's why I avoid using Normal for body text. I never customize Normal in any way. See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NormalVsBodyStyles.htm. You can, however, modify your headings to be based on "(no style)." SignatureSuzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. > > There are many other opinions... My "best practice" suggestion is to stick > > with "Normal" as the default (body text) style. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Dennis >> There are many other opinions... My "best practice" suggestion is >> to stick with "Normal" as the default (body text) style. > Won't there be an issue when I need to make changes to the Normal > style? For instance, when I add spacing below paragraphs, it also > affects my headings. Hi Dennis, That's an inheritance issue. You don't have to base your headings on "Normal" if you don't want to. Admittedly, if you do make changes to "Normal", they'll usually affect a lot of other styles. In Word 2007, it will be a problem even with the default settings, because Normal will have modified line spacing and "space after" anyway. Klaus
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